Race, Religion and the Medieval Norse Discovery of America

Bibliographic Data

ID16901993
AuthorsZachary J Melton (0000-0002-4534-9455, Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume15
Issue9
Pages1084
Publication date2024-09-06
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueReligions (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2077-1444 • E-ISSN: 2077-1444
PublisherMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/rel15091084
OpenAlexW4402319078
LanguageEN
References cited20

In 1837, Danish philologist Carl Christian Rafn published Antiquitates Americanæ, which introduced Americans to the Vinland sagas—medieval texts that suggest that Norse explorers “discovered” North America around the turn of the first millennium. Rafn, who saw it as his mission to promote Old Norse literature around the globe, presented some of his research in a way that would appeal to Anglo-American prejudices, particularly through the obsession with American Antiquities and the question of a pre-Columbian civilization. His conclusions and the Vinland sagas consequently entered the American racial and religious discourses. Like other discovery myths, the Vinland sagas were used by intellectuals to argue for an early white presence on the continent. Later that century, the Norse discovery was framed in religious terms as some white Americans attempted to replace the figure of Christopher Columbus with that of Leifur Eiriksson as the true discoverer of America. The ramifications of Rafn’s work and its reception can be seen in twentieth- and twenty-first-century representations of Vikings in American popular culture

Ancient history · Middle Ages · Old Norse · Sociology · Classics · Cultural History and Identity Formation · Gender Studies · History · Medieval Literature and History · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity

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